[Info-vax] DLT Tape degaussing services

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

Rich Jordan <jordan at ccs4vms.com> wrote:
(snip on degaussing DLT tapes)

>     unfortunately Radio Shack tells me they no longer carry those.  I
> haven't seen one on ebay this past week either (there are a couple of
> others though).  Without knowing the 'oersted rating' there's no way
> to know if one of those would be powerful enough; the manual warns
> that hand held tape degaussers may not be strong enough to do the job.

Very likely they aren't powerful enough to do it right.

I have a DLT1 drive and some used DLT IV tapes.  The drive won't
load tapes, even after a small degausser was used.  

It might be that 15 amps at 120 volts AC, 60Hz, isn't enough
to degauss these tapes.  I believe that there are commercial scale
degaussers that run on higher voltages and currents.

Empty, the current is limited by the inductance.  Also,
many are not designed for continuous use but need to cool
between use.  

-- glen